International breaks are supposed to offer La Liga Press departments some well-earned rest. Yet, lately in Spain the international break seems to be the time when the skeletons come out of the closet and this one was to be no exception.
Barcelona, who have had plenty of allegations thrown at them this past year, saw another player in the news for all the wrong reasons. The match fixing investigation involving Real Zaragoza and Levante saw players interviewed and an unexpected attendee show up at court and even though the offence had nothing to do with them, Real Madrid have found their name being dragged into the Caja Madrid/ Bankia scandal.
Lionel Messi may be celebrating the fact that 10 years ago this week he made his debut in La Liga but not for the first time it will be off the field events that will upstage those on it. The Argentine forward has been accused, along with his father, of defrauding the Spanish state by filing incomplete tax returns and by trying to hide money in offshore bank accounts. Messi has denied all wrongdoing and so has his father.
Whilst being careful with what he says, Jorge Messi this week spoke to Spanish radio and strongly insisted that his son was innocent and had nothing to do with any financial dealings. Still, as Barca’s last La Liga game showed, Messi is the target of abuse from fans, whether or not he was involved.
Against Rayo Vallecano he was subjected to so much abuse from fans that Jordi Alba went over and asked the fans to stop. The investigation is still open but Messi and his father hope it will be concluded soon. So too do Barca but just when they thought that things couldn’t get any worse, Gerard Pique enters the fray.
Last weekend the Barca defender was involved in a heated discussion with police officers who had fined his brother for parking illegally in a bus lane for 15 minutes. Images of Pique have been retweeted non-stop and there have been plenty of articles written about what Pique was supposed to and supposed not to have said.
Pique has taken to Twitter to apologise for his actions and admit he was wrong but was keen to stress that the media has exaggerated what happened and what was said. But, Barca weren’t alone making the front pages and while Madrid might have thought they had escaped the week have bad headlines, they were in for a shock.
An investigation into Caja Madrid, which in 2012 merged with other regional savings banks to form the state owned bank, Bankia, has shown that a group of directors, over 80 of them, were given ‘black’ credit cards and ran up a bill of €15m. At least two of those directors are Real Madrid members and one played a role at the club under former President Ramon Calderon, while another has links to Florentino Perez.
Madrid have done nothing wrong and were not involved at all with the socios spending money using the credit cards, it hasn’t stopped their names being linked to the club. Madrid have distanced themselves has much as possible from them but won’t appreciate the fact that a topic that has a lot of Spaniards foaming at the mouth now sees their name mentioned. Still, the story of the week is the investigation in match fixing – a story that is still getting little to no attention in Spain.
When Javi Tebas took over the presidency of the LFP he said that he had been informed of allegations of match fixing in various ties. Tebas promised an investigation and he has delivered. One of the games was a fixture between Real Zaragoza and Levante. Atletico Madrid captain Gabi has already admitted to receiving a payment that he quickly returned and the case is still on-going and, as yet nothing has been proven.
This week two other former players were called to testify. Javier Paredes and Jiri Jarosik both spoke to the judge presiding over the case. Just before Jarosik went in, Antonio Prieto, the ex-sporting director showed up unannounced and spoke to the court. What did he say? That is still unknown but he left with Jarosik, who told waiting reporters to divert all questions to his lawyer.
Jarosik’s lawyer said something similar to what Paredes had said when he left, that everything was ok and they were both calm. This case has the potential to rock La Liga and shake it to its very bones. Yet, it gets little attention.
So as La Liga prepares to kick off again, Press departments return after a few days off but there are those that got no rest and may be dreading the next international break in November. One thing that can be confirmed is that in Spain there is never a dull moment and there is plenty for journalists to write about.
